Notes on Grief
by TofuLove
Summary: For Thine is the Kingdom. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. - T.S. Elliot. The third instalment of 'Notes'


**AN: This is the third instalment of 'Notes'. I don't know yet if it's the last one. This one took me forever to right, and I'm still not convinced it's that strong. So far the 'Notes' Series has gotten more views then anything else. Yet I have not ONE new review to show for it. so come on guys. I know your out there, I just need to hear from you. Even if you hate it. =] Who is happy that Obama is now the american president? Didn't come as a shock to me personally but I definatley would have had it the other way around. anyway, enough of this. Enjoy!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock or any other T.S. Elliot poems, nor do I own Harry Potter. **

* * *

**Hollow Man**

_**There will be time, there will be time **_

_**To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; **_

_**There will be time to murder and create, **_

_**And time for all the works and days of hands **_

_**That lift and drop a question on your plate; **_

_**Time for you and time for me, **_

_**And time yet for a hundred indecisions, **_

_**And for a hundred visions and revisions, **_

_**Before the taking of a toast and tea.**_

The Breadth of the sun washes in, but he's been awake for hours.

He doesn't know how long he has been waking up this early. Some small ticking in his head says that it's been happening ever sense she came home from the hospital. Right after he got the news and she was allowed back home.

After she started crying herself to sleep and he couldn't sleep even after he had comforted her into drifting off.

Another part of his stubborn mind wants to tell him that it's only been happening the past couple months. Ever sense the wedding. Ever sense she was finally his. Ever sense life ended as he knew it.

The sunlight does nothing for him but make his eyes water and his heart ache with yearning. Just let her sleep a bit longer, it seems like only seconds ago she lied down and rested. Let her sleep. Let it still be yesterday. Let her still be alive one more day even if the sun does come.

Despite his yearning for the delay in sunrise it does everything for her complexion. Her milky skin shines in the light, the curls draping across her cheek are silky as chocolate, her eyes staring up at him are smoldering under the shadow of her flickering lashes.

…Damn

"Go back to sleep, love."

For a moment her eyes flicker closed again in compliance as her pink lips fold into a smile. She turns her head to kiss the finger that has guided itself down her cheek and across her chin. He stares at her as long as he can, soaking up the alone time and hoping he can stay this way. But somewhere in him he realizes that thought is juvenile and pushes it away. She will realize it soon enough too.

Too soon for him.

"Mmm nope, I have to g-get up."

She murmurs around a yawn. She stretches like a cat, extending her limbs and then curling them up again into a tight ball as if her body is rebelling against her plans, too. She opens her eyes then and stares at him full on. No subtle passion behind the smoldering chocolate. She kisses him on the mouth and then is up faster then he can respond and pull her back.

His eyes follow her as she leaves the room and goes into the bathroom, and he wonders not for the first time what would be crueler, that she should visibly be getting weaker, or that she isn't? How much more can life play with them? How much can it expect him to hope before it yanks her away? How long? He wishes he could say that he doesn't think of it often, but it's on his mind every morning and every night. There is a sound like she is coughing up a lung and sordid lumps of something falling into water and he is up faster then the blankets can be yanked off, and then sprawled on the floor, tangled in the sheets. He throws them off, frustrated, and hurries into the bathroom with a concerned call.

"Hermione?"

She is over the toilet. He holds back her hair as she gags on her empty stomach acid and tries to hide the worry lines on his face before she can turn around and see him. She has learned to stay calm. Amazingly calm. He is the one having trouble with the adjustment. He leans over and puts a cold wash cloth on the back of her neck. She closes her eyes and waits still a little longer. Then she is laughing tiredly.

"I can feel you getting tense. Calm down, I'm just sick."

He swallows hard as she leans up and moves to the sink. She cleans her face and looks up through the mirror at him, smiling softly.

"Normal sick. I probably just ate something rotten."

She turns around and touches her hand to his cheek, then runs her finger along the bottom of his dark eyes.

"You look like you could use a sick day too, Sirius Black."

Her tone is threatening, like she means business and he raises a brow and laughs gruffly.

"They'll be no sleeping today. You're sick and I'm supposed to take care of you remember? I think it was somewhere in those vows? Sickness and health or something like that."

She rolls her eyes.

"Yeah something or other."

Just as soon as that he is kicked out so she can shower and feeling like today is not going to be one of her good days.

_**Do I dare**_

_**Disturb the universe?**_

_**In a minute there is time**_

_**For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.**_

The clock ticks, she is lying in the sun outside, he is watching both with eyes intent. Every moment of his life seems to revolve around what would happen if she had an attack next. How fast could he get her to a healer to make it stop? How many more attacks can her body handle before _it_ stops? An unbalanced equation that makes his heart race and his knees buckle and bile to rise in his throat. He doesn't want to think of such consequences today. Yet they seem to take up his existence now. It makes her angry when she realizes, and it riles her up. So he has to stop. But he doesn't.

There is a glow. bright and brilliant about her. And though she was always beautiful, today it is radiating with a light he has never seen before.

The deep plummet of her chin down to her breasts. The smooth up curve of the slight bump of her stomach. The gentle glide of her robe as the edge of it hangs up around her thighs. The line of it pivoting into the inside of her thigh. Lost in the dark shadow of her body.

Lost in the dark shadows of his eyes.

She can feel his eyes on her.

Raking her body like he is a starving man in need of sustenance.

He has been on her like this all day. She hates being sick. Not because of the occasional pains or the risk of an attack, but because of what it does to him.

Sirius Black was adolescent, juvenile, and without a doubt the most arrogant and brutally charming man she had ever had the auspicious misfortune of knowing. He was brave and strong and ready in a heartbeat to always put a look of shock or offense on your face. He has yet been reduced to a weak imitation of his former self. No sleep due to excessive worry where there was once a drunken smile or an atmosphere of contented glee with the world. She hates this penetrating disease because it has affected his mind just as much as it has her body.

Like a life preserve rising to the forefront of her mind keeping her sane and logical and calm, he is still there, and the closest she ever comes these days, is when she sees that look on his face.

She sees that she is killing him.

That's when the tremors strike and she has to remind herself that he is still here.

If only for the moment.

Now where there was once a man who drank with vigor and laughter, who made airplane noises for a baby with emerald eyes, who ran through forbidden lands with unspeakable methods for the sake of those he loved. There now lays a man so afraid of death he puts hold on everything to watch for it. So that what once was does not repeat itself. It almost killed him the first time he couldn't save someone. Now it's happening right in front of him and he can still do nothing.

She sees that she is killing him. That every time he speaks he sounds hoarse and snapped, as if he had screamed and screamed and could scream no more.

**Monster**

_**This is the dead land**_

_**This is cactus land **_

_**Here the stone images**_

_**Are raised, here they receive**_

_**The supplication of a dead man's hand**_

_**Under the twinkle of a fading star.**_

There is one who stays in her dreams. A ghost with a stranger's face and the sad eyes of the lonely.

A man she never knew who stood with a wand in hand and a blank look on his face over the body of a cloaked figure. He wept.

She saw him in the blink of an eye. Someone she hadn't remembered seeing until this very moment of dreaming reminded her he was there. Someone not worth remembering when she had time to live and everyday didn't have to be the last.

She remembered thinking he was wrong.

"Why would someone cry over that…that monster?"

Ron sneers after the battle. Broken and bruised and angry that anyone would care for one of those '_monsters_'. The ones who killed his brother.

"I don't know, Ron."

She was too relieved. Too tired. Too content with lying on his chest. With young love. With being alive and well and Voldemort being quite the opposite. The word rang in her ears.

Monster. Say it. Spell it. Remember it.

Monster. Monster. Monster.

Whisper it. Decipher it. Put it away for now.

Remember it ten years later, sunbathing with the shell of the man you love.

Remember his broken stature. His dead face. His wide unbelieving eyes. The tears that stain his face and wash the mud and blood from his clothes.

Somebody's son. Somebody's brother. Somebody's friend.

Somewhere…

_Everything_ had changed.

But he reminded her of someone.

And he was in her dreams every night these days.

**The End of the world in four easy steps**

_**Between the idea**_

_**And the reality**_

_**Between the motion**_

_**And the act**_

_**Falls the Shadow**_

A jolt of unbelievable pain in her abdomen.

A quick, panicked glance to Sirius.

His stiff wide 'deer in the headlights' look.

Her false comforting smile and a quick skirt to the bathroom.

A flickering idea.

A panicked idea.

A painful reaction.

A tantalizing truth.

An assumption of the worst kind

Clomping footsteps that follow and worry and plead and scream all at once.

He can feel his blood throbbing like acid. Leaving him raw and breathless and amazingly awake and aware. His senses seem to be making themselves notorious with his ears pricked, his nostrils flaring in silent frustrated anger, his eyes pricking in an unfamiliar frightening reaction.

The door slams behind her.

He knocks.

She objects.

He waits.

An impatient _loud _thing, his waiting.

"J-just a minute"

She stammers. Her voice is weak and frightened.

His waiting gets louder.

Coughs, sighs, gruff clearing of his throat, a stomp or two, and silent knocks on the door that disguise themselves as carefree drum beats.

A clatter as something drops.

A final 'thump' as his heart stops

A silence.

A penetrating, _wicked_ thing, her silence.

A fearful whisper from behind the locked wood door.

"Oh Gods…"

A louder fall.

An even louder bang of the door.

It breaks. He curses. She screams.

_**For Thine is the Kingdom**_

_**Between the conception**_

_**And the creation**_

_**Between the emotion**_

_**And the response**_

_**Falls the Shadow**_

"What is your problem?!"

"Well, I heard you fall! What the hell was I supposed to assume? And you screamed!"

"You knocked down the door! Of course I screamed!"

His words are a catapult. His voice is an explosion. His expressions a poison.

Her words sting. No particular anger behind them. Surprise fueling her volume. She has never been in so much pain and been so happy. She's holding up surprisingly well. But he doesn't know yet.

She winces.

He freezes.

"Alright, alright. Calm down…"

She's cradled against him now, gritting her teeth, trying not to scream. Breath in short gasps.

He's trying not to panic and doing a very good job of it.

"Breathe love. Slow and even…..there you go…you're here with me…you're not there."

The hallucinations don't come. The pain recedes. The tremors reduce to violent shivers.

He holds her tighter.

"That was a close one."

He laughs in relief and she finds herself smiling.

Until she remembers.

The tremors start again.

"Oh Gods…Sirius…"

She grits her teeth.

She has to get this out before she blacks out. Goes back to the battle and sees that broken monster again. Sees Ron stricken with grief. Sees Harry dead in Hagrid's arms.

"I'm here…Come on love calm down."

"Sirius, listen…"

He is breathing as fast as she is now. She is not aware of much besides the burning in her veins. The tightening of her limbs. They feel like they are squeezing until they break right off of her body. She is being torn apart by the acerbic in her veins. She is slightly aware of being lifted and she has no time for any more coherency as the determined trek of her words runs over and over through her head.

"I'm Pregnant."

Sirius almost splinches them.

_**Life is very long **_

_**Between the desire **_

_**And the spasm**_

_**Between the potency **_

_**And the existence **_

_**Between the essence **_

_**And the descent **_

_**Falls the Shadow**_

Urgency makes him grab her and he feels like it will mean nothing unless he says it. He cares not for the tears on his face. The pride that he should feel being a Black. He cares not for what people will say. He knows he will rip them from limb to limb should they speak a word. He cares not for anything but her face here and now, and the fact that unless he says this now…

He will regret it forever.

"You listen to me, Hermione Jane Black,"

She wheezes and a tear falls down his face

He has to turn away.

He cannot bear to see her this way.

Weak and broken.

Dying.

Dry swallow.

Continue

"I was alive before the veil, but I was not _living _until I came back and you sent me that silly first grade letter telling me you loved me."

A smile.

He holds back the whimper and lets the hot tears come faster.

"I love you _so_ much I-I…."

His head falls into her blankets to hide his outburst and he blows out air to relieve the scream he wants to emit. Her hand falls on his head and grips his curls with a ghost of her former strength.

And his reserve is shattered.

"Dammit….you _have_ to get better!"

She wheezes in response and his grip on her hand tightens as if he could hold her there.

Pull her back and _make_ her stay.

Stay…

"You can't leave."

Her grip slackens.

No wheeze responds.

Her tremors are gone.

His gaze travels up gradually, terrified to look.

Her eyes are closed.

Like she is sleeping.

The sun shines on her curls and makes her face burnish like he has never seen before.

And he screams like a dying man.

_**For Thine is the Kingdom **_

_**This is the way the world ends **_

_**Not with a bang but a whimper.**_

Sucking away her last tethers to life.

Taking her already ebbing strength.

Like a parasite.

It killed her.

He cannot hold it.

He cannot even look at it.

Knowing without a doubt he would have had more time had he only seen it sooner.

Her tiny, fragile, dying form kept the size it should have had, hidden.

The _thing_ is tiny. Due to the poison.

He cruelly hopes that it suffers like her.

Maybe it will die soon.

If not from the poison then from three months premature labor.

She would be heartbroken if she heard his thoughts.

He moans and cradles his head in his hands.

She is gone.

_That thing_ took her sooner then the poison would have.

It is just as bad as Narcissa or Bella or the damn drink itself.

It is just the same.

Remus knows. He is angry. But he cannot speak his blame. He understands all too well.

He is holding the thing.

Cooing at it like it's precious.

Forgetting that Hermione is dead in the next room.

Her body still warm.

Her eyes will not open.

She will not grin at him and kiss his fingertips and stretch like it's a luxury.

He left the room only an hour ago.

After he realized that she is not waking up

It all happened so fast.

There was no time to think.

He loved her.

There was no story book goodbye.

No silent exchanging of words.

She said nothing.

She was in too much pain from the tremors

(_'Harry can't be dead!'_)

and she was completely incoherent from the hallucinations.

('_He's not a monster!'_)

All he had was the imprint of her last smile on his soul and the slight tingling on his scalp where her last grip had faltered and fell.

"Sirius…"

He doesn't move.

Remus stands patiently. Holding the monster.

Monster. Monster. Monster

He should have had more time. He should have appreciated her more. Loved her more. Fought less. Kissed her more passionately. Protected her so much better. Defended her every day. Taken notes about the right things to do or say or think. Gotten her daisies more often and watched her press her freckled nose into them. Recorded her giggle and played it over and over again. Listened to her better. Let her sleep in. cook for her. Listen to her read. Teased her less. Remembered every quirky know-it-all comment.

Never _ever_ taken. Her. for granted.

He should get up, hold the child, remember and cherish the memories, get over her death, live life, find a way to take care of her child.

Their child.

But he just shoves Remus off, and apperates back to the house.

And cries. And screams. And throws things. And punches walls.

And whimpers.

The world was supposed to have ended…

But he will live long enough

There will be tears tonight.

**AN: I'm having trouble deciding if I should just leave you all to fester in Sirius' grief or give you the final volume. This one took me forever, and it more or less follows the same outline I used on the other stories. I used T.S. Elliot quotes throughout the story because I simply love the man and his work and I wish he could have had a computer so he could have written tons more poems then he did. Nevertheless they worked out very well for what I wanted to do. As always I love the reviews and would appreciate some feedback, even if its criticizing. =]**


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